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Daniel Hope

MUSIC DIRECTOR

Violinist Daniel Hope has been performing worldwide as a soloist for more than 30 years. He is celebrated for his musical creativity and his commitment to humanitarian causes.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, Hope travels the globe as both chamber musician and soloist, collaborating with leading orchestras and conductors. Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra since 2016, in 2018 he took up the same position with San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra. In 2019, he became Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche Dresden, and he has been President of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn since 2020, succeeding Joseph Joachim and Kurt Masur.

Hope is a welcome guest in famous concert halls and at renowned festivals from New York's Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House, from Salzburg to Aspen and Tanglewood, from Schleswig-Holstein and Gstaad to the BBC Proms in London. He works regularly with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Iván Fischer and Christian Thielemann, as well as with the major symphony orchestras in Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo and many others. He works closely with the leading composers of our time, such as Alfred Schnittke, György Kurtág, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Tōru Takemitsu and Tan Dun.

His discography includes more than 30 albums, which have received awards including the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason d'Or of the Year, the Edison Classical Award and the Prix Caecilia and are regularly acclaimed by the press (New York Times: "one of the best albums of the year”; Gramophone: “top choice of all available recordings”).

Hope is a passionate chamber musician and was a member of the Beaux Arts Trio for several years. His artistic versatility is also evident in projects with artists such as Klaus Maria Brandauer, Zakir Hussain, Sebastian Koch, Iris Berben, Mia Farrow and Sting, and as a radio and television moderator. A documentary titled Daniel Hope: The Sound of Life was released in North America, Australia and Europe in 2017.

Every week since 2016, Hope has been presenting the radio show "Personally with Daniel Hope" on WDR3; he has also written four books, all of which have been published by Rowohlt Verlag and have become bestsellers. He writes for the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, and for his series "Hope@9pm" invites guests from culture and politics to a salon at the Berlin Konzerthaus.

In support of other artists, Hope created and presented over 150 episodes of music and talk in the Hope@Home livestream series broadcast by ARTE during the 2020 lockdown, hosting artists from Robert Wilson to Lang. With the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, he initiated several benefit concerts with pianist Alexey Botvinov.

Hope studied violin with Zakhar Bron, Itzhak Rashkovsky and Felix Andrievsky and completed his training at London’s Royal Academy of Music. He worked closely with his mentor Yehudi Menuhin, with whom he gave numerous concerts. Hope holds the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and was awarded the European Culture Prize in 2015. He lives with his family in Berlin and plays the "Ex-Lipiński" Guarneri del Gesù from 1742, which is generously made available to him.